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RUSSIA/US: Global partnership

The outlook for the G8 Global Partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction.

SIGNIFICANCE: In 2002, the G8 pledged up to 20 billion dollars over ten years to secure and eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in Russia and the former Soviet states. Yet, halfway through the planned effort, most of the programme's initial goals are less than half accomplished, and enthusiasm for the initiative is waning in the face of Russia's new assertiveness and wealth.

ANALYSIS: In the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States won support from the other G8 members to step up funding to eliminate former Soviet weapons of mass destruction. The countries agreed on the '10 plus 10 over 10' formula -- a ten-year programme in which the United States would pledge 10 billion dollars, with matching pledges of up to 10 billion dollars from other countries, including Russia:

• The US funding essentially continued previous US programmes run by the departments of Defense, State and Energy, but most of the 10 billion-dollar pledge from other countries represented new commitments. • In the following two years, 13 additional countries (from Australia to Switzerland) and the EU joined the partnership as donors, while Ukraine joined as a recipient.

The partnership's priority concerns have been the destruction of chemical weapons, the dismantling of decommissioned nuclear submarines, the disposition of fissile materials and the employment of former weapons scientists.

Chemical weapons. Russia has the world's largest stockpile of chemical warfare agents, with 40,000 tonnes stockpiled at seven sites. Under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), it is supposed to have destroyed all of these by a final, extended deadline of April 29, 2012. In ratifying the CWC, Russia made clear that it would need foreign help in this process, given the economic and political challenges of the immediate post-Soviet period.

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The Global Partnership placed high priority on this effort because of terrorist interest in these weapons and the relative ease with which they could be obtained and employed. There were more than 4 million portable nerve-agent artillery shells in the Russian stockpile and many of the Russian sites were poorly secured.

Some 2.1 billion dollars of foreign assistance have been contributed towards this effort, with the United States and Germany being by far the largest donors in this area. Two destruction facilities have already been built with foreign assistance at Gorny (lewisite and mustard agents) and Kambarka (lewisite). A nerve agent destruction facility at Shchuchye is scheduled to become operational this year. Nonetheless, Russia is widely expected to miss its final CWC deadline, having so far destroyed little more than one-fifth of its holdings.

Scrapping submarines. At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had 63 nuclear-powered submarines with ballistic missiles (SSBNs) and 140 nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs). The Global Partnership has pursued their elimination for two reasons:

• the nuclear threat from their long-range strategic missiles; and • the environmental and proliferation risks posed by their nuclear reactors and spent fuel assemblies. • The partnership has helped dismantle about one-tenth of this fleet, bringing Russia's fleet to only about one-fifth of its Cold War size (15 SSBNs and 26 SSNs). However, about 100 decommissioned submarines are still awaiting dismantling. The reduction of much of the nuclear fuel has so far been concentrated in Russia's north-west, where the environmental dangers posed by these vessels have helped encourage aid from Norway and Sweden. Much more needs to be done to dismantle vessels in Russia's Pacific Fleet. Fissile material security. Highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium could provide the fissile material for nuclear weapons; therefore, keeping them out of terrorist hands has been a key counter-terrorism priority for the United States:

• Some 3.4 billion dollars in Global Partnership support have upgraded security at Russian nuclear weapons material sites. These funds have also helped replace Russia's three remaining plutonium-breeder reactors with fossil fuel plants. • Furthermore, funds have been set aside to dispose of 34 tonnes of Russian plutonium, but US-Russian liability disputes and, more recently, differences over how the material has been disposed of have stalled this effort. • A huge storage facility for plutonium and HEU from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons has been underutilised, partly thanks to disagreements over what transparency rights foreign monitors will have in return for the funds provided. Negotiations over a transparency agreement for the facility -- designed largely to reassure the United States that the plutonium would actually come from dismantled nuclear weapons -- have yet to be completed.